The Ghost of Winning

With age came awareness of the failing self. The hardening of character, the softening of form. The swelling and soreness, the joints that went creak in the night.

One moment you were bouncing around, as carefree as a puppy in a meadow; the next you were staring into the mirror like a paranoid dictator, wondering which body part would betray you next.

In Jacob’s case it was his left foot—the one he’d used to great effect at his weekly five-aside football: weaving past opponents, leaving them wobbling like Subbuteo figures; hammering in goals from every angle, exchanging witty banter many had feared extinct. But here, on the mouldy astroturf, there had been an unlikely revival. Strangest of all was that phenomenal urge to simply win.

An armchair anthropologist, he pondered its origin. Nothing they did here made any difference to the outside world. No goal, however stunning, would stop his next speeding ticket or end the war. This, they all knew. And yet, as soon as kick-off was declared, all logic left their bodies; possessed by childhood spirits to frantically chase after a ball. Sometimes he mused about including his best moments on his CV…

You mentioned your hattrick down at the pitch next to the Cumberland sausage factory, wasn’t it?

Yes, that’s right, Sue. We were actually 2-3 down, and I just thought—fuck it—show some leadership skills: Went round two and slotted it in the bottom-right corner. Steve Pengelly fell into the brambles trying to tackle me, and Paul Anning, their goalie, even laughed and called me George Best.

Right…Well, shall we discuss starting salaries?

Though if he’d thought what he did on Sunday had no effect, he should have specified ‘positive.’ For after a year of playing in undersized boots, a horrible reddish growth sprouted on the side of his big toe. Wading through the online forms, he finally secured an audience with a doctor, who seemed rather annoyed to be seeing a non-virtual patient, and promptly diagnosed him with bunions.

Well, he knew that after your mid-thirties things took a downhill turn—but still, bunions? Add that to the tendonitis in his wrists and he was almost ready to be fitted with a wheelchair and a synthetic voice.

…

It was unfortunate that youth had a unique talent for self-termination: the future still a meaningless abstraction, a strange mist on the horizon of their eternal summer. Thus, whatever they felt in the moment, no matter its chemical catalyst, was deemed ultimate reality and therefore treated with deadly earnest.

Of course, Jacob was no exception. He’d won his Prague bridge-jumping badge, completed Amsterdam on its hardest setting, driven those swirling Cornish lanes at 2 am, and awoken from comas to receive tearful lectures from saucer-eyed party pirates. He’d solemnly served the party gods and survived their wrath.

Yet survival came at a price—every fun thing now a calculated risk, a way to mitigate punishment for those who broke the rules of cellular regression.

Take the humble beer for example. Once a trusted portal to a new dimension of boundless confidence, a sacred potion to connect with your fellow random, or to simply hug your friends; now it was regarded with primitive suspicion, as one might do a snake, wondering how much venom your head could endure tomorrow morning.

Yes, he’d avoided the tragic car crashes and hotel balcony falls, only to feel that numbing sensation of trying to explain his existence to an increasingly puzzled uncle each Christmas. The Reaper, having recently completed an online degree in economics and accounting, courteously agreed to claim him in installments instead.

But battle on he decided he must, embarking on a great quest—a return to his beloved shire; a nice, normal place where he could stir his tea without wincing.

Along his path he came across many shrugs, sighs and riddles of consultants, specialists, technicians and witchdoctors, who had him scanned, radiated, lasered, electrocuted, elongated, heated, cooled, suctioned and punctured—sprawled out like a cursed voodoo doll, needles protruding from his neck and back; tortured in magnetic cylinders by progressive villains…

Do you expect me to get better?

No, Mr Bond! I expect you to pay more taxes!

Through regretful experience he learned that once pain had a territory colonised, establishing its neurological networks, it was difficult to uproot. Just when he thought he’d reclaimed his wrists, there would be a post-ping-pong flare-up, a keyboard mine, and the rebels would be back, riding up and down his tendons in Toyota Land Cruisers.

The recovery took time, but at last, the swelling in his foot receded, the tendonitis quietened down and another game of footy seemed in order.

Meanwhile, his girlfriend’s sister announced that her fiance wanted to join them for a kickabout. Sure, why not. They always needed a spare player to fill in for the ones who didn’t turn up.

…

“Yeah, it’s a good atmosphere,” said Jacob, returning to the living room with the teas. “Nothing too serious really,” he continued. “Just your average bunch of beer bellies getting their weekly run-around. Probably a little below your standard, to be honest. Daniella mentioned you used to play in the Exeter youth academy or something?”

Sean accepted his mug with a stiff nod of his smooth, bullet-shaped head. It appeared that over the years most of his features had been filed down, until he’d been left with just the very basic expressions.

“That’s right,” he replied, torso angled slightly away from formality, as he gazed out of the window. “And I really appreciate you inviting me along, Jacob…”

There it was again: the name thing. Who did that, other than your parents or primary school teachers? Perhaps he should meet fire with fire and name him right back…

“Yeah, no worries, Sean…I mean, like I said, it’s only a—”

“I really hate the person I become on the pitch—if ‘person’ is even the right word for it…”

Shortbread crumbs tumbled onto the carpet from Jacob’s open mouth. “I’m sorry, you wh—”

But the ghost of winning had already swept Sean away, far beyond any amateur’s comprehension.

“I was trained to take the other player out, get him off the field—whatever was required to get the win. For me, it was more than a game, Jacob. Each match was a fight for the future, what I put it all on the line for. The better I got, the worse it became: all joy drained away, leaving nothing but tables, rankings, tactics—the constant pressure to achieve.”

Jacob dared not ask how this ‘fight’ had turned out. Those who made it didn’t usually end up sitting on dusty armchairs, talking like this.

Instead, he scanned the room, searching desperately for something to hang his thoughts on. The only thing was his retro Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles clock, each seismic tick a reminder of the coming doomsday event of Sean on Sunday.

Underneath, on the unused hearth, was an old Jamie Oliver cook book; the cheeky chappie from simpler times, zipping around London on his Vespa to buy mozzarella and olive bread from temperamental Italians.

The modern man: in touch with his feelings and his tastebuds. Chipper enough for your dad, just saucy enough for your gran. But somewhere along the way something had gone terribly wrong. People were anxious, confused, angry—and no amount of fresh produce could change that. Was it neo-feudal Marxism to blame, or the fact that no one picked up after their dog? He zoned back in, realising that his guest was still going…

“Out there it’s a jungle: no mercy, no laws…”

Thou shalt not two-footed tackle?

“…This is my battlefield. These are my brothers; those are my enemy. Today we bathe in their tears…”

“Yeah…erm, sounds like you’re motivated,” murmured Jacob, his toe-growth tingling with a dreadful premonition. “I mean, some of us do have families to get back to. Plus, I’ve got elderly parents to look after, so…” He drifted off, a meek smile his only defence. It was like trying to locate a vein to inject with some empathy.

“Yeah, I know what you’re saying...”

Or… perhaps he’d hit one?

“…It’s that mental memory, that…that mindset taking over—hard to describe really. They used to call me the minotaur.”

“Uh huh.” The tea in Jacob’s mug tremored.

…

Sean’s presence still hung heavy: the sad aroma of Lynx Africa, polyester and unfulfilled potential, his confession still dripping down the walls. The afternoon turned to evening; the colour faded from the room. Jacob sat, huddled in shadows, face shrouded in thoughts. Finally, like a statue come to life, he took his phone and opened up the group chat entitled ‘footy failures.’

So wat about our new guy then? Gavin, aka the tin man, had posted at 12:03

Yea seems ok, he tapped back with a guilty thumb. ex-academy player so things might get a bit more competitive than usual lol.

Was this the five-aside equivalent of saying that Harold Shipman had a slightly unorthodox approach to his patients?

Ok I’ll drink 3 ciders instead of my usual 4, wrote Mark ‘big head’ Chapman, adding his usual array of shameless emojis.

…

The sun remained comatose, as it had done for weeks, smothered under a bed of strange clouds. As above, so below was a shitshow: everything rusting, sagging, in terminal decline. Yet, the hope survived that this bunch might create amongst them at least one piece of poetry in motion.

Sean the minotaur was doing hip circles behind the goal in full Umbro kit, his beefy calves reinforced by shinpads. When he saw Jacob, he nodded, drawing out a beaker of luminous blue liquid from his Nike sports bag. “Electrolytes,” he explained. “The difference is, I add my pre-workout formula direct to it.”

He unscrewed a tub of yellowish powder, the logo of which showed a weirdly muscular rooster in sunglasses, surrounded by a bunch of flirty looking chickens. “Sourced from the testes of Guatemalan fighting cocks. This stuff’ll make you want to headbutt King Kong.”

Jacob nodded, relieved to see Jim Blimpson waddling over with a curious look on his simple face.

“I thought we’d agreed on the rules: no doping,” he said with a jokey smile.

Sean scanned him in a single blink, assessing his lack of balance, excessive body mass, and general lack of will to be his main weaknesses.

“Your shoelace is undone,” he said.

“Hey, Ben, how was your little daughter’s birthday party?” Jacob asked a long-haired guy, munching on a pasty whilst watching a seagull watching him from the roof of the warehouse opposite.

“That was last month,” he replied with a shrug. “But yeah…good, thanks.”

“Lovely bond they’ve got though,” Jacob said to Sean, who nodded without hearing a single word, halfway through a set of squats.

…

“MAN ON!”

Jacob spun away from a defender, tapping the ball back across to Sean, who feinted past one, before blasting the ball into the top corner, leaving the keeper like a heap of unidentified roadkill.

“What’s that now? Seven nil?”

“Eight,” replied Sean.

Jacob’s role in the massacre, although significant, was overshadowed by the pure menace, power, and skill of the minotaur. Needless to say, the best way to avoid becoming his victim was to end up on his side—a lucky coincidence Jacob could only thank his devious sense of self-preservation for. The opposing team, however, were not so fortunate—mere flimsy props as the ghost of winning continued to rage.

The final score was eighteen-two, with Jacob relieved no serious maiming had occurred.

And as Sean jogged casually over, a human smile finally gracing his face, he unthinkingly held up his hand for a celebratory high-five…